


Sympathy for the Devil

by Paralyticdreamz



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Backstory, F/M, One Shot, aaaaa, envy - Freeform, fleshing out paula, for a tourny, go easy on her man, paula isn't the bad guy, phase 0
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 19:23:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15955889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paralyticdreamz/pseuds/Paralyticdreamz
Summary: Stuart Pot was the first and last mistake she'd ever have the pleasure of making.





	Sympathy for the Devil

Envy had been within her for as long as she could remember, it didn’t matter what it concerned. Some would call it selfish, she wasn’t ugly or anything after all… but what she was was painfully average. Sure, she could have been living day-by-day with a deadly disease, or abandoned by her parents to become the government’s problem, but being average in every aspect was torturous through her young eyes in a shortsighted way only few could see.  
Paula Cracker always felt a few steps behind, out of sync with everyone and everything around her. It felt like fading into the background most of the time, the cursed ability to become invisible no matter how hard she tried to stand out. Amy could daw anyone and anything and make you believe it were a picture, Nicole had never made lower than a B in her entire time at school, Lori came first at almost every track meet… then there she was. Paula Cracker, just a little uglier than your average girl with a personality about as interesting as a glass of water. No ice.  
The only thing that ever felt like a true solace from that normality to her was her guitar. Every day she came home and confided in its strings, her slightly out of tune voice warbling along to songs she’d taught herself just from hearing them on the radio. She knew someday those strings were going to bring her straight to stardom, even if nobody else did. She was going to escape the cycle of normality and stick it to anyone that had ever doubted her before. They’d be left speechless when her name was finally in lights and they were working an office job or making dinner for 4 kids.  
Stuart Pot was what held her back from everything she’d ever yearned for. The first and last mistake she’d ever have the amazing pleasure of making. Many would consider him a dream come true even now, Paula could never forget to look past his mystique to the nightmare.  
They started dating in high school. Back then she figured it was all a sick joke. After all, Stuart was a pretty boy, even if a little frail. He was something straight out of the boy band posters Paula had plastered all over the walls of her room at that time. When she was sure he wasn’t pulling her leg though, she undoubtedly accepted his feelings with a naivety only someone blind to the real world could have.  
Everything from then on was almost too perfect compared to the streak of her life up to that point, or anyone else’s for that matter. They moved into a small flat right after they graduated, the cheap kind with walls in colors only an elderly person could truly fancy and worn carpet. Stuart worked two jobs, one at a music shop down the road and the other at his dad’s funfair, while Paula worked the late shift at a shoddy diner mostly kept in business by sweaty truckers.  
“This is all only temporary, luv,” He used to say during the commercial breaks when they were watching sci-fi movies on Paula’s nights off. She still remembers how the TV reflected in those blue eyes she fell in love with, that dorky smile always reassuring her things really WERE only temporary, no matter how deceptive it was.  
“Someday, we’ll start our own band, once we’re all settled’n stuff. We won’ be livin’ in a flat, we’ll be livin’ in a mansion. Wif a pool.” Stuart used to promise her in the mornings when they sat on their rickety bed, the guitar she’d had since she was 15 in her lap and a keyboard propped up in front of her boyfriend. She always believed every little sweet nothing that passed his lips like it was sacred.  
The day everything truly went wrong for the first time in those dream-like years was unforgettable. The moment she got a call from Uncle Norm’s she didn’t waste more than a couple seconds on the phone. ‘Car crash…’ that was all she needed for her stomach to drop to her toes.  
Some crazy delirium possessed her, her legs taking off out the door and down the paved sidewalk, still in a pair of plaid pajama pants. They had one car, but she got there so fast people would have figured it wasn’t already sitting in the debris-covered car park. Everything turned into a blur of flashing red and blue and unknown hands on her shoulder, reassuring that things were going to be okay or apologising for things they didn't even do. That whole day slowly became a blur in her mind, the entire downward spiral when Stuart wasn’t there only committed to memory through the negative emotion she felt. Paula didn’t think he’d ever wake up.  
Yet one day he did, and the world kept turning. Even with his poor eyesight and the high hospital bills he was alive, and that was all that mattered. They watched movies at night and played music together again, but he seemed to be home less and less often. She never worried then, she had no reason to.  
Their dream only seemed to be growing more within grasp. Stuart finally invited her to join his band with a giant smile on his face a few weeks after his return. They both knew this was what they’d been waiting for.  
They both quit their jobs, moving out of the flat and into a giant mansion, like Stu had always promised. She figured that was years off from then, but that's besides the point. The mansion was shabby and smelled like trash all throughout, filed with cheap furniture and random oddities the previous owners left behind. It was home.  
Their money came entirely from their gigs, leaving them practically homeless at first. Things slowly changed the more awareness they gained until they could finally pay the utility bills and feed the four band members.Paula felt closer to her future than ever, yet Stu was only drifting away more and more into the deep dark sea of fame. She always had to be conscious of who he knew or was spending his time with. Jealousy began eating her from within every second of every day, even though she knew she should be happy. She thought it irrational and selfish, beating down on herself while telling nobody of her suspicions.  
Then she walked in on Stuart cheating for the first time. She’d always imagined that if it ever resorted to this she could stand up for herself. Paula wanted to explode and then disappear from his life without a trace or a tear, become one of those confident women who believed she was the best damn thing that ever happened to him. In practice though… she was so afraid. Her legs were paralyzed on the carpet. She watched the skinny blonde that had been on his lap pull her tank top back on and leave with disgust, the only signifying notion of her complete absence being the slam of the bedroom door that left her and Stuart completely alone.  
Speaking up against him and leaving him would have meant losing everything that she’d worked for. The little girl of her past sitting around plucking the strings of her guitar would never forgive her if she did that. So she didn’t. Instead, Paula cried until she thought she had no tears left. Stuart acted like nothing was wrong even though he knew she was in pain.  
That may have the first and only time she ever looked up to the heavens, praying to a God she didn’t believe in to just make everything okay again. There was a permanent laceration between them that she wanted someone to fix so badly, the only issue was she never wanted to be the one to fix it.  
Day in and day out women she had never seen before passed in the door with her boyfriend’s arm around their hip, day in and day out she bowed her head submissively and did nothing, though the anger and envy was only festering the more her surroundings fed it. Stuart Pot was always supposed to be the one good thing she could rely on, yet he excused that simply because could. They didn’t even sleep in the same bed anymore, Paula slept on the couch, even though it was lumpy and smelled like nicotine. She couldn’t bare to be surrounded by Stuart any longer than she needed to for the media to believe they were happy together.  
It didn’t take long for an opportunity to arise for her to truly revolt. Her emotions were guiding her like a dog on a leash, leading her straight towards Murdoc Niccals. He wasn’t a support system, definitely not a shoulder to cry on, but damn, was he shameless. ‘2D’s arch nemesis’ seemed like the perfect place to give her ‘boyfriend’ a taste of his own medicine. She never expected anyone to make it a big deal when they never made a big deal of what Stuart did to her, it was just a petty jab at his ego.  
The dim lights flickered around them as they crashed together against the rickety wall of one of the bathroom stalls, Murdoc kissing her with the sort of passion she really couldn’t reciprocate to someone with such god awful breath. She played along though for the sake of revenge. There was no guilt to anything she did.  
Her heart began to pound as footstep pattered against the tile and echoed around the room, only growing closer and closer to the third stall. Any minute now Stuart would turn the corner. He’d be shocked, paralyzed in the same way she was every time she had to see him with somebody that should be her. She could ignore him when he cried and pretend like he wasn’t worth her time anymore.  
But wasn’t Stuart. Her heart stopped. She instinctively pushed Murdoc off of her, wide eyes growing wider on a pale and afraid expression. It took a second for her to notice that Murdoc’s shirt was gripped hard in one of Russel’s hands and the other was balled up, colliding with his face over and over until he slid limply to the tile, a steady stream of deep of red slowly flowing from his nose to the grooves in the floor.  
Paula tried to run, but she was left tripping over her own shaky legs, stumbling straight into the exact problem she’d wanted to get rid of. She pushed at his chest, trying to run past him and get away from her own mistake as Russel explained it all with complete disappointment. There was no escape from it all, and it slowly closed in further and further until she was left suffocated.  
They kicked her out after that. She tried to see it as an opportunity to escape the negative emotions in that house, but they followed like a shadow. Her mistake, her failure, drove her insane. Even when her guitar was in her hands, nobody wanted to listen. The news had spread.  
She wasn’t plain anymore, she wasn’t a ‘rising star’… she was a whore, a cheater, a despicable no good manipulator. One little mistake had damaged her forever in the eyes of everyone.  
Some say you can always recover from the pain of heartbreak with time. Stuart recovered from his ‘pain’ within hours, yet 20 years and a lot of medication later she still couldn’t find the space to. He stole her dream and ran away with it, leaving her to his fangirls like a broken toy. The industry shut her out, the internet even became off limits after so long because of how many people felt she had no place anywhere.  
Sometimes Paula still looks at the dream she could have had, wondering what if would be like to play guitar for a billion people that could have seen her as so much more than average.  
Sometimes she still wonders if people could have some sympathy for the devil.

**Author's Note:**

> My first entry for the writing tourny on gorillaz amino, expect my second entry in a few days :)


End file.
